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India and Missionary Motives, c. 1850–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

G. A. Oddie
G. A. Oddie
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History, University of Sydney, Australia
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Extract

While a number of historians have focused attention on the development of Protestant missionary thought and activity in India during the nineteenth century, comparatively little is known about the social background, education and motives of the missionary candidates eventually selected for service in that part of ‘the mission field’. Who were these men and why did they go? What pressures and motives lay behind the continued expansion of missionary activity in India during this period?

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 61 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 61 note 1 The exceptions were mainly German missionaries recruited by the C.M.S. during the first half of the nineteenth century when the Society was having difficulty in attracting British recruits: Stock, E., History of the Church Missionary Society, London 1899Google Scholar, i. 91.

page 61 note 2 Statistical Tables of Protestant Missions in India, Burma and Ceylon, prepared on information collected at the close of 1881, Calcutta 1882Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 Sibree, J., L.M.S. Register of Missionaries, Deputations etc. from 1796 to 1923, 4th ed., London 1923Google Scholar.

page 62 note 2 These papers are contained in two separate collections in the L.M.S. archives: (a) Candidates’ Papers, 1796–1899 (arranged in alphabetical order according to the name of the applicant); and (b) Answers to Printed Questions, Boxes 26–28. The names of the candidates whose papers were consulted are placed in an Appendix to this article which also gives their occupational background wherever this information was available.

page 62 note 3 See Appendix.

page 62 note 4 Sibree, op. cit.

page 63 note 1 One hundred and twenty-nine, or about 39 per cent, of the 330 candidates sent to India by the C.M.S. (1850–1900) were university graduates. Twenty-one of the 29 missionaries of the Free Church of Scotland working in India (1874–1883), 72 percent, and almost all of the 19 men connected with the work of the Irish Presbyterian Mission in Gujarat (1855–1890) had university qualifications. For the proportion of Methodist missionaries with university degrees, see Report of the Missionary Conference of South India and Ceylon, Madras 1880, i, pp. vii–viiiGoogle Scholar (List of members) and Report of the Second Decennial Missionary Conference held at Calcutta, 1882–1883, Calcutta 1883Google Scholar, xxxix (List of members); for C.M.S. missionaries, see C.M.S. Missionary Register and for Presbyterian missionaries, see Free Church of Scotland Report on Foreign Missions, 1874–1883, and Jeffrey, R., Indian Mission of the Irish Presbyterian Church, London 1890Google Scholar, 5–6.

page 63 note 2 Sibree, op. cit., and Lovett, R., History of the London Missionary Society I795–1895, London 1899Google Scholar, ii. 667–70.

page 63 note 3 Sherring was the author of Indian Church during the Rebellion, London 1859Google Scholar; Sacred City of the Hindus, London 1868Google Scholar; History of Protestant Missions in India, London 1875Google Scholar; Hindu Pilgrims, London 1878Google Scholar; and Castes and Tribes of India, as represented in Benares, London i (1872Google Scholar), ii (1879). Campbell contributed a number of articles to the Madras Mail and to well-known missionary periodicals, including the Christian College Magazine, Harvest Field and East and the West, while Phillips was author of Teaching of the Vedas, London 1895Google Scholar (Sibree, op. cit.).

page 64 note 1 For a discussion of some of Slater's views and work see Sharpe, E. J., Not to Destroy but to Fulfil. The Contribution of J. N. Farquhar to Protestant Missionary Thought in India before 1914, Uppsala 1965Google Scholar, 69–105, as well as candidates’ papers and Slater's works mentioned above.

page 65 note 1 Sibree, op. cit.

page 65 note 2 Ibid..

page 68 note 1 London 1914Google Scholar, 33.

page 68 note 2 There is little difference, for example, between comments of a number of L.M.S. candidates and the remarks of James Long who, when applying for service with the C.M.S. in 1838, declared that ‘the thought of 800 millions passing into eternity every 30 years without a ray of hope often overwhelms me then I ask myself the question am I doing my part to avert these dire consequences’: C.M.S. archives, Long to Jowett, 12 October 1838.

page 68 note 3 Philosophy of Missions: a present-day plea, London 1882Google Scholar, 26.

page 68 note 4 Payne, E. A., The Baptist Union: a Short History, London 1959Google Scholar, 125.

page 68 note 5 Ibid., 139–40.

page 69 note 1 Slater, The Philosophy of Missions, 26–30.

page 69 note 2 Ibid., 25–6.

page 69 note 3 Life in Christ, 3rd ed., London 1878Google Scholar, 509

page 70 note 1 Op. cit., 31.

page 71 note 1 R. Lovett, op. cit., ii. 670.

page 71 note 2 Warren, Social History and Christian Mission, ch. 3.

page 71 note 3 Satthianadhan, S., Missionary Work in India (from a native Christian point of view), Madras 1889Google Scholar, 21.

page 71 note 4 Ibid..

page 72 note 1 It might be noted in this conncxion that many of those recruited by the C.M.S. during the second half of the nineteenth century were already curates in the Church of England: C.M.S. Register of Missionaries.

page 72 note 2 World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission VI, 136–7.

page 72 note 3 Lovett, op. cit., ii. 747.